Man says fake social media account created to gain from tragedy

MT. WASHINGTON, Ohio (FOX19) - A Mt. Washington man says someone created a fake Facebook Messenger account using his photo and name to try and gain from a tragedy.

Dylan Roberts sister and her roommate lost everything when their house at Sutton and Salem roads in Anderson Township caught fire on Aug. 31.

Roberts says these days it’s not uncommon to hear from people he doesn’t know after he started a fundraiser to try and help the pair get back on their feet after the fire.

Roberts says Wednesday night he received a message on Facebook from someone he had never met asking about a message... and if it came from Roberts.

“I immediately responded and said this is 100% not me,” Roberts said.

Someone created a fake Messenger account, using Roberts’ name and face, claiming they also wanted “to help get back some of the things they lost in the fire.”

“The whole message is full of grammatical errors and strange punctuation and capitalization. Things that anybody who knows me would know is a big red flag. Saying something about a partnership with Amazon to get reduced prices on things if people donated cards to some email,” Roberts said.

Since this happened, he says he’s been checking to see if there are any other fake profiles of him out there. He also says this one has been reported.

“At first I was kind of shocked and I didn’t even really know how to respond. That pretty much immediately gave way to anger that someone would use such a tragedy as a way to try and make their own personal gain, especially using my image and pretending to be me,” Roberts said.

Roberts says he believes the fake Messenger account might have been taken down because he can’t find it anymore, but he also says he’s now worried someone will create another fake account using his information.